So excited, hubby bought me a new hat and some wool! I don't often see hats I really like, and as knitting is what I do as a day job I don't usually buy knitted stuff either. This hat is an exception. Made by a lovely woman who lives on South Uist and spins and knits with her own wool (strangely she moved up from Shropshire where I hail from). This splendid specimen is made from Hebridrean fleece and is just yum. Her website is www.hebrideanwoolshed.co.uk. I'm going to make a tea cosie from the balls I have, to restart my knitting business.
We also visited Kildonen museum, which is full of information about island life. It all seems so romantic, living in a blackhouse and being so close to nature, but basically it wasn't. The houses had earth floors with the fire on the floor in the middle of the room - no chimney. Typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis were rife, food had to be caught or collected from the sea or grown on poor soils in wild weather. Even now, in June we're wearing coats and woolly hats, windy much of the time or midgy when it isn't windy. But it is beautiful.
I 've been listening to gaelic radio, what a stunningly lovely language. I can't see how the written word matches the spoken one though!
Another potter on the beach at Eriskay to climb rocks and photograph hat. Florence wants to learn how to rock climb properly, so it's off to the climbing wall in Shrewsbury when we get back. Her dad and I are both scared of heights, a lot, so where did that come from?
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